Trial of the Officers and Crew of the Privateer Savannah, on the Charge of Piracy, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New YorkWarburton, A. F. (Adolphus Frederick)
History
Trial of the Officers and Crew of the Privateer Savannah, on the Charge of Piracy, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York
Warburton, A. F. (Adolphus Frederick)
Piracy -- United States; Privateering -- United States; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
Now, gentlemen, this may not accord with the sentiments of some of you;
but what right have you--if you should differ entirely with Mr.
Webster--if you should believe that there is a great law of our Maker,
a higher law than any created on earth, which requires you to refuse
obedience to that Fugitive-Slave Law, and makes it a high duty to
resist its execution--what right, I say, have you to _force_ that
opinion upon me? What right have you to require that I shall yield an
allegiance to all parts of the Constitution which _you_ approve, while
_you_ refuse it allegiance whenever you please?
They have assigned, as another cause, the notorious fact of _the
establishment of what is known as "the Underground Railroad," aiding in
the escape and running off of slaves_, and the clandestine removal of
property which belongs to the people of the South. They assign, as
another, the _rescue of persons claimed as fugitive slaves_, as in the
case of the _Jerry rescue_, in or near Syracuse. Passing once through
that city, I saw a placard announcing a grand demonstration to come off
in honor of that achievement--the forcible rescue of a man from the
hands of the Government who was claimed under the provisions of the
Constitution and an act of Congress which the Federal Courts had
declared to be constitutional!
They refer, also, to the _Creole case, in which, according to the
Southern view of the subject, it was virtually and practically decided
that no protection was to be afforded to slaves, as property of
Southern men, on the high seas_. That is their view of it, and it has
been expressed by able men with a great deal of force.
They also refer to the _John Brown raid_, which we have not
forgotten--to the invasion of Virginia by that man, who furnished the
negroes with implements of slaughter. With the results of that outrage
you are all familiar.
They refer to _the general assault on the institution of slavery_ which
many men at the North have felt it on their conscience to make,
including such distinguished orators as LLOYD GARRISON, GERRIT SMITH,
the fascinating and silver-tongued PHILLIPS--to whom I have listened
with pleasure, much as I detested his sentiments--and THEODORE PARKER,
the greatest of them all.
They refer to the declarations of cultivated men at the North, that
there were no means to which men might not resort to extirpate slavery;
and who, when against them were cited certain passages of Scripture
that were supposed to sanction the institution of slavery, fell back on
the position that our Constitution was _an "infidel Constitution,"_ and
that even the Bible was not to be regarded as any authority for such a
monstrous error as that.
They refer to _the declaration of Mr. Lincoln_, in one of his addresses
to the public, _that Government could not endure half slave and half
free_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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